It was a loo(ting) for the ages.
Three men snatched an 18-carat-gold toilet worth $3.5 million from an English country mansion where Winston Churchill was born — and now they could be headed to the can, authorities say.
The one-of-a-kind, 215-pound, fully functioning commode was carried out of Blenheim Palace by the thieves in under 5 minutes in the predawn hours of Sept. 14, 2019, prosecutor Julian Christopher told a jury during his opening statement in Oxford Crown Court on Monday.
The pilfered potty, an art piece called “America” created by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, was a satirical work intended to poke fun at the US for its excessive wealth. It was insured for $6 million.
Although the price tag for the artwork at the time of the theft was $3.5 million, the price of gold has more than doubled since then, putting its likely current value closer to $7 million.
The toilet was never recovered, but it’s believed to have been dismantled and sold since what prosecutors called the “audacious raid.”
It was once on display at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, which reportedly offered up the gilded bowl to President Trump when he asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting during his first term.
With AP
